Legacy application modernization, one system at a time
For teams running software that still works but has become expensive to change. We assess what you have, scope one system on a fixed price, and migrate it in slices while the existing version keeps serving traffic. No eighteen-month rewrite, and no launch night where everything changes at once.
- Years of Industry Experience
- 10+
- Global Clients
- 350+
- Projects Delivered
- 420+
- Tech Engineers
- 35+
When a system that works starts costing you
Legacy does not mean old. It means the cost of changing it has outgrown the value of keeping it as it is.
The five approaches to legacy system modernization
Most real projects use more than one, applied to different parts of the same system. The assessment decides which goes where.
What we modernize, and what we do not
A modernization partner who claims every platform is telling you something about their sales process, not their engineering.
We work on
- Web applications on PHP, .NET, Java, Node, Python and Ruby
- Front ends on jQuery, AngularJS and other end-of-life frameworks
- Monoliths that need splitting into services, or services that should be merged back
- On-premise and single-server apps moving to AWS, Azure or GCP
- Database migrations, schema clean-up and reporting layers
- Mobile apps on unsupported SDKs, including hybrid rewrites
- API layers over systems that currently have none
We refer out
- Mainframe and COBOL estates
- AS/400 and iSeries migration
- SAP ECC to S/4HANA programs
- Embedded and industrial control firmware
These need platform specialists who do that work daily. If that is your estate, we will say so on the first call rather than three weeks into an engagement.
The jumps we make most often
Not an exhaustive list, and yours may combine several of these. If your stack is not here, ask anyway.
How the work actually runs
The first deliverable is a document, not a commitment.
The two ways these projects go wrong
The big-bang rewrite
The classic failure: a team rebuilds for eighteen months against a moving target, the old system keeps changing underneath, and the new one never catches up. Incremental migration behind a routing layer is slower on paper and far more likely to finish.
Undocumented behaviour
Old systems accumulate rules nobody wrote down, and some of them are load-bearing. We characterise existing behaviour with tests before changing it, so the question stops being what should this do and becomes what does this do today.
Data you cannot afford to lose
Migration is the moment records are most at risk, so it runs with the old system still holding the source of truth until the new one is reconciled and verified against it.
- GDPR, and HIPAA or PCI DSS where they apply to your data
- Access control and audit logging built in, not added later
- Reversible cutovers, so a bad slice rolls back instead of forward
- Row counts and checksums reconciled before the old system is retired
We build to these requirements. Where you need an audited certification held by the vendor, say so early and we will tell you honestly whether we clear that bar.
Industries we have modernized systems for
- Healthcare
- Fintech and payments
- Logistics
- Retail and e-commerce
- Education
- Real estate
- Manufacturing
- Professional services
Related services
- Web app development
When the modernized system needs new surfaces built on top.
- AI integration services
Wiring AI into the system once it is on supported ground.
- Mobile app development
Rebuilding apps stuck on unsupported SDKs.
- AI consulting
Deciding what is worth automating before anyone builds it.
Systems We've Shipped
Platforms and applications running in production for real businesses. Each card opens the full case study.
Legacy modernization questions
What teams ask before committing to a modernization project.
Updating software you already depend on so it is cheaper to run and safe to change, without losing what it does. In practice it is one of five approaches: rehosting it onto better infrastructure, replatforming it onto supported runtimes, refactoring its internals, rebuilding parts of it, or replacing it with a product. Most real projects use more than one, applied to different parts of the same system.
It depends on which approach the system needs, and that is what the assessment establishes. A rehost is a fraction of a rebuild. The honest answer is that anyone quoting a figure before reading your code is guessing. We scope it after the assessment and give you a fixed price in writing, so the number you approve is the number you pay.
That is the default approach. New functionality runs behind a routing layer alongside the existing system, and traffic moves across in slices rather than at a single cutover. Each slice can be reversed. Some database migrations need a short planned window, and we tell you which ones in the assessment rather than on the night.
No. Mainframe, AS/400 and COBOL estates need specialists in those platforms, and we are not them. We work on web, mobile, cloud and database systems. If your estate is mainframe, a firm that does that work every day will serve you better than we would.
Usually modernize. A rebuild throws away years of accumulated business rules, including the ones nobody documented, and those rules are often the actual product. A rebuild makes sense when the existing design genuinely cannot support where the business is going, and the assessment is what tells us which situation you are in.
The assessment is typically one to three weeks. After that it depends entirely on scope and approach, which is why we scope one system at a time rather than quoting a program. You see working software in stages throughout, not at the end.
Start with the assessment
Thirty minutes to talk through what you are running and what it is costing you. If modernization is not the right move yet, that is a fine outcome and we will say so.